Abstract
Modal auxiliary verbs are a type of verb that expresses the speaker’s attitude and opinion towards a proposition or an event. This paper investigates the syntactic features of modal auxiliary verbs in different languages from the aspects of semantic constraints, the deletion of complement clauses, constituent movement, pseudo-cleft construction and temporal and aspect markers, and analyzes relevant hypotheses of modal auxiliary verbs under the framework of generative grammar. We challenge the assumption that modal verbs are raising verbs, argue that modal auxiliary verbs should be analyzed as raising or control verbs.
Highlights
According to Lyons (1977) and Palmer (2001) et al, modal auxiliary verbs (MAV) are concerned with the speaker‟s opinion or attitude towards the proposition or event, which mainly includes three types of MAV: epistemic, deontic and dynamic
This paper investigates the syntactic features of modal auxiliary verbs in different languages from the aspects of semantic constraints, the deletion of complement clauses, constituent movement, pseudo-cleft construction and temporal and aspect markers, and analyzes relevant hypotheses of modal auxiliary verbs under the framework of generative grammar
Some researchers believe that there is no semantic constraint in the subject of deontic MAVs that belongs to raising verbs
Summary
According to Lyons (1977) and Palmer (2001) et al, modal auxiliary verbs (MAV) are concerned with the speaker‟s opinion or attitude towards the proposition or event, which mainly includes three types of MAV: epistemic, deontic and dynamic. In (2), expletive subject there is the subject of be and raises to the subject position of MAVs may/must which are deontic modals They point out that dynamic MAVs like dare/will which need an animated subject can be shifting into intransitive uses, and these MAVs can license an unanimated subject. Since the hypothesis that MAVs are raising verbs isn‟t without a problem, many other linguists like Zubizarreta(1982), Roberts(1985), Brennan (1993), Thráinsson &Vikner (1995), LØdrup (1996), Drubig (2001), Asarina & Holt (2005), Hu(2015), et al believe that MAVs should be analyzed as raising or control verbs. Wurmbrand (1999) points out that, even in deontic MAV constructions with an animated subject, there is no direct interpretation showing theta-roles like „obligee‟ or „permissee‟ to coincide with a specific syntactic argument in the sentence, and these theta roles are assigned contextually.
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